Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 vs. Battlefield: Bad Company 2

It has come to my attention that people I often argue or discuss technological topics with, don’t truly have a good reason for their position or they don’t know how to present their position to really advocate it, and quite often in their defense they will stress that life isn’t a debate, or that it’s all opinion, therefore they don’t have to say anything any certain way or provide reasons for their thinking. Is this truly an excuse? Can we not discuss or debate by rules of logic just by the premise that we are not lawyers or in a debate tournament? I often find they say this through an attempt to evade their faulty logic patterns. I’ve grown tired of arguing with the same type of arrogant individual on technical topics. One debate I often find myself running into is that of Call of Duty vs. Battlefield: Bad Company 2.

I usually find that the only Call of Duty (COD) game that is compared to Battlefield Bad: Company 2 (BC2) is Modern Warfare 2 (MW2), this is the most fair comparison that I can provide for the best ground of discussion or debate because both games attempt to achieve the same objective of realism in the modern combat world that we live in today, it is therefore best to compare these two as they were meant to literally compete with one another.

The best way we can set up the debate is to designate certain areas of rating that both games pertain to the most, areas where we can find the most common ground possible. We designate these areas into two main sections, and then subsections in each, firstly, section one would be that of the technical aspects of the game, areas that are not largely debatable as they are mainly specifications rather than analytics, which brings me to the second area of debate, game play. It is most fair to divide the game into these two main sections because these are the two areas that gamers, whether console or PC will care about the most, this is quite obvious as we can see in popular review sources and by looking at basic facts from video game history, facts such as that graphics are becoming possibly one of the most important factors in gaming, especially for PC gamers.

This is evident by the ever-higher priced and performing market for video cards and graphics drivers, also seen by the high demand for games to be compatible with newer versions of directx, a Microsoft graphical user interface utility, the latest version out at the moment is directx 11, most games are built for directx 9 and/or 10, but directx 11, while new, has high demand for implementation in mainstream games, only the PC and the Xbox use directx, but the other consoles have an equivalent that can be compared to directx as almost a duplicate. There is little debate as to whether or not graphics are in high demand by the consumer as an important element in gaming, if this wasn’t the case, there wouldn’t be billions of dollars in the video game industry that primarily relies on advancements in graphics and physics, as well as sound quality to keep consumer’s eyes open and wallets empty, otherwise, games would still be released and built by the standards seen in the 1990’s in games such as Doom or Quake, games that revolutionized the industry and proved that the technical side of games is critically important to the consumer.

It is clearly evident that BC2 has an incredibly advanced game engine in comparison to MW2’s utility. The graphics which are utilizing directx 11 are undoubtedly better whether or not they are on a console or a PC, as is the sound quality and physics, not to mention the hacking protection that is much more effective than the poor excuse for a safeguard that MW2 provides, yet it is not completely effective, but then again, what game is? There is little debate on the technical aspect of the games, which reviewers see as important when they compare the two, as BC2 wins virtually every time. There is little debate because mainly it is generally raw facts other than an clash of theories, for example, individuals may legitimately argue that ATI is better than NVIDIA overall, but nobody is going to argue whether or not the Radeon HD 4870 is a better video card than the GTX 580 is, clearly, it’s not even remotely close. The real substance of argument that the debate is sees is when players or critics discuss the gameplay. One-half of the debate has already been overwhelmingly won by BC2.

Both of the games are attempting to mimic a reasonable amount of realism for the player as much as possible, however they planned to achieve it best from different standpoints that are obviously evident. MW2 attempts to replicate some sort of individualism between players, as seen by kill streak rewards and lack of teamwork while playing, to be frank, when playing MW2, the only reason players don’t kill each other in team games (if they don’t) is because they are on teams. Arguably it is the same way for BC2, however in BC2 there is no kill streak rewards of any kind, and that alone shows its objective, because if the history of mankind has shown us anything, its that people will act of incentive, and when there is an incentive for players to be in it for themselves in a video game, and truly themselves only, that proves alone that it isn’t team oriented, if it was, it would have more of an incentive for teamwork, which BC2 provides. Often there is mass communication between players in the forms of text and/or voice throughout the game, which again shows BC2’s approach to create realism, an approach that relies on teamwork and the value of teammates working together, why, because it is needed to win, and there, is the incentive.

What is realistic about MW2 exactly? What is realistic a bunch of players running around shooting randomly in small closed maps with no vehicles etc, that can call in virtually anything that the army has to offer including a nuclear weapon to further their win? Next to nothing is the answer. BC2 offers the far more realistic alternative that many gamers want. As far as this goes, which style you like best is up to you, either approach has pros and cons, however, the BC2 approach achieves a much more realistic environment for players that both games attempt to provide, and by that premise alone, BC2 wins, and at the point where we divide the debate into 2 sections, and 50 percent of it already goes to BC2 for the technical aspects, all that must be done to show that BC2 is truly better is for it to gain ground on one aspect of the other 50 percent, which I have shown that it does on the aspect of realism, which is clearly important to the developers and consumers alike as seen by advancements over the years, so either way, BC2 has already won more than half the debate, therefore winning the debate inherently no matter what. Other than that, the rest is up for debate, but one thing is sure, BC2 wins hands down.